How to write a resume with no work experience

An empty work history is a formatting problem, not a disqualification. The task is to give a reader evidence of the same things a job would have shown.

What the employer is actually checking

For a role that expects no experience, the reader is looking for three things: that you can do the mechanical parts of the job, that you finish what you start, and that you will be straightforward to work with. A job history is just the usual evidence for these. It is not the only possible evidence.

Sections, in order

1. Contact details
2. Summary — three lines: what you have studied or done, what you are aiming for, one concrete thing you have made or run
3. Education
4. Projects and coursework
5. Volunteering, societies, or any paid work at all
6. Skills

Where the evidence comes from

Coursework and projects

Treat a substantial project like a job entry. Name it, say what it did, say what you contributed, and give an outcome. A grade counts as an outcome. So does "the department kept using it".

Volunteering

Volunteer work is work. Organising a charity collection, running a college society's accounts, coaching a junior team — each involves commitment, other people and a result. Include dates so the reader can see it was sustained.

Self-directed work

A blog with a real readership, a small business, a repository someone else uses, a translated document, a piece of furniture you built and sold. Anything with an audience or a customer is stronger than anything with neither.

Family business or informal work

Widely underused, and entirely legitimate. If you kept the books for a family shop from sixteen, that is bookkeeping experience. Describe it plainly, name the business, give the dates.

What not to do

• Do not invent a job. Reference checks and probation periods exist, and the consequences arrive after you have resigned from something else.
• Do not stretch a two-week shadowing placement into a six-month internship. Date ranges are checkable.
• Do not fill space with adjectives. A short honest page beats a padded long one, and the padding is obvious to anyone who reads resumes for a living.
• Do not apologise. No "unfortunately I have no experience yet". State what you have.

One page, densely filled

With no employment history, a second page will be padding, and padding is more damaging than brevity. Fit it to one page and make every line specific.

Common questions